Dead Man's Song (Pine Deep 2)

“You’re right, it’s not. ”

“It’s between Connie and me. So, butt out. ”

Val did not reply. He heard the boards of the slat bench creak as she sat down. Over beyond the barn an owl hooted, probably confused by the coming darkness, and there was the sound of some traffic on the road. Truck, by the sound of it.

The day had started okay, with Connie acting more like her old self, even to the point of doing a bit of gardening, but when Mark had come up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his loins up against her rump, she had screamed. Actually screamed, and then started struggling to get away from him like he was some kind of damn rapist. It made Mark sick and it scared him, and it also made him mad. He hadn’t seen her struggle like that when Ruger was running his hands all over her that night, but when her husband wanted to cop a feel—her frigging husband who had rights—then she was all piss and vinegar, fighting for her maidenly honor. Well screw that. Then, of course, she had burst into tears and gone running off to cry on Val’s shoulder. She cried all the damn time. There were times that he wanted to shake her, slap her, tell her to just get over it. It had been like that since they’d gotten home. Connie spent most of her time either crying or staring off into space like a zombie, and now they were sleeping in separate bedrooms.

Val was being a pain in the ass about it, too, always siding with Connie and treating him like he was Jack the Ripper.

“Mark?” He tried to ignore her. “Mark,” she repeated, putting a finer edge to it.

“What?” he snapped, still looking out into the big dark. There was the sound of another vehicle out on A-32. A car this time.

“You need to get help, Mark. ”

Now he did turn and pointed at her with the half-empty beer bottle. “Yeah? Well you need to mind your own bloody business, Val. ”

Val sat almost primly on the bench, her legs crossed, hands folded in her lap, head cocked slightly to one side, appraising him. “I’m serious here, Mark. Connie’s in therapy, and I think you need to see someone, too. ”

“Bullshit. The only one around here with a goddamn problem is my goddamn wife. ”

There was such a look of naked contempt in Val’s face that even in the heat of his anger Mark couldn’t look at it. He turned back to the gathering darkness, drank down the rest of his beer, and with a snarl of rage threw the bottle far out into the yard where it shattered against a stone.

“Mark,” Val said, her voice softer as she got up and came to stand right behind him. “I understand that you’re hurting because of what happened, but denial isn’t going to—”

“Spare me the psychobabble,” he hissed. Then he spun on his heel and shouldered past her into the house, letting the screen door slam emptily behind him.

(3)

Crow stopped with a barrier-arm across Newton’s chest. Since their last tête-à-tête they had walked for another hour, following a series of hills that appeared to be descending lower and lower into the roots of the mountains. Their path, such as it was, spilled out at the bottom of one of the longer hills and they stood completely shrouded in cloying shadows. Across from them, perhaps forty feet away, the other hill lifted tiredly on its long journey upward to find the hidden sunlight far above—sunlight that looked weaker now as clouds thickened overhead. To their right the valley between the hills wormed through some ancient glacial boulders and then widened into a thicket of gray and sickly trees. The undergrowth glistened wetly, as if covered in grease.

Slowly, Crow raised a finger. “Listen,” he whispered.

Newton listened to the woods, to the air. It was like watching a movie with the sound turned down. “There’s nothing,” he murmured.

“Right,” Crow said softly. “Absolutely nothing. No birds, no wind. Nothing. It’s dead. ”

Crow nodded slowly. “Yeah. Good word for it. ”

They moved toward the thicket, entering a natural archway made from the laced fingers of empty branches. They took two paces into the corridor of black trees and then stopped, as still and silent as the forest around them. Both men blinked in surprise and alarm, both opened their mouths to speak; neither said a thing. If moving from sunlight into shadow on the hillside had jarred them, then entering the thicket positively struck them over their hearts. Both of them had stopped as if they had walked into some invisible barrier.

“Jesus Christ!” Crow gasped.

“Damn!” hissed Newton. They exchanged looks of shock.

“What just happened?” asked Newton in a hushed voice.

Crow just shook his head. He took a tentative step forward. His foot moved easily, there was no actual barrier, no specific tangible thing barring their way. He took a few steps, and then stopped and looked back to Newton, who seemed wholly unwilling to go any farther.

“Come on, Newt,” said Crow in a hushed voice. “In for a penny…. ”

Newton looked up, and the intertwining branches of the skeletal trees made him feel as if he were inside some vast and monstrous rib cage. He followed slowly.

The archway of trees stretched on for nearly 150 yards, at times so narrow that they had to walk in single file while branches plucked at their coat sleeves, and sometimes wider, so they could stand side by side to leech confidence from the visible presence of the other. As they reached the end of the archway, they stopped again. Crow was still sweating profusely and he was breathing as heavily as he had during the long climb down the hill. Newton noticed, as he had before, that Crow’s hands automatically and unthinkingly touched the butt of the pistol and the handle of the machete over and over again, like a pilgrim touching his talismans while in the land of the pagans.

Crow blotted his face with his sleeve and then froze, staring at the ground. He took two short steps and then squatted down. “Look at this. ” When Newton came over Crow pointed at a part of the dirt pathway visible through the fallen debris.

“Is that a footprint?”